Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Die geheime Geschichte

I appreciated this on a technical level, but there is so little happening (in terms of plot) from page to page and it’s just not what I’m looking for in the contemporary books I read. I love this level of detail in science fiction or fantasy or speculative novels, but I don’t think it’s necessary here.

It definitely made the English Literature major part of my brain light up again though. I was thinking about essay topics as I read (the amount of character analysis alone…)

Content Warnings

bookieman's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I have to say that I went into this thinking it was "dark-academia-fun" but in it's first spin it was 1. true crime, 2. commiting crimes on a daily basis, 3. Incest, 4. sudden romance, 5. "betrayal?" 6. more death and at it's peak, homophobic and simultaneously, homosexual.
I love this book, and I hate myself for loving it.
A lot of people say, that the writing is too dense. It really isnt!!!! It feels like any person with a degree in English could have written this AND THAT IS THE CHARM BC THE NARRATOR IS A PERSON WITH AN ENGLISH MAJOR.
The writing felt real and I did sometimes forget that this book is fictional bc of that.

Content Warnings

roseisvibing's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The Secret History is so slow-paced, oh my god. While the writing is very descriptive, there is so much unnecessary writing that makes you want to give up reading it. It takes like 200 pages (out of 600) of build up for any major plot development to happen. I like the intended message, but it is presented so indirectly in a text that is overall so longwinded that it almost loses meaning. It's the kind of book where you have to sit and process once you've finished- not in the 'wow, this has really affected me' kind of way, but in the 'what in the fuck did I just read' kind of way. The meaning/themes are very subtle, which meant I was left trying to figure out what point Tartt was intending to make with them. At times, it feels like events are just happening without a point to them.

Also, I find the book's recent BookTok popularity very ironic given its intended message. I've seen people recommending this book because it's very 'dark academia' or 'aesthetic'- people are recommending it based on the aesthetics of the setting and the descriptive writing, which the book absolutely does provide (in an overly longwinded manner). However, the book's intended message is that having an obsession or fixation on aesthetics or outward appearances can lead to people overlooking necessary practical or internal traits. So, ironically, Tartt's text has kind of become exactly the opposite of what she intended, given that most readers' descriptions are reducing it to its aesthetics rather than its actual message and dark themes.

Content Warnings

itsapollo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

We're dealing with a story whose cast of characters are every one of them morally gray. Questioning morality and the fluctuations of one's own moral compass throughout various traumatic self inflicted circumstances. It's wildly fascinating. A tragedy where everyone loses. Where the product of their own choices may perhaps become punishment enough for the characters transgressions. The writing of this story is so intricately woven while at the same time only showing us the view from one Richard

Spoiler

"the bystander which I so essentially am"

Spoiler

Content Warnings

fiolud's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

annablume's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

night3aven's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Secret History has the characteristics of whichever book you would name a classic: beautiful, elegant and complex prose, deep and insightful psychological characterization, and a wide range of themes all almost perfectly addressed and explored.
If this will not be remembered for its role in literature, I do not know what other novel could steal its place.

Opinions on style:
The author's writing style is sublime, rich of different colours and doted of an excellent use of figurative language. It is by far the strongest point of the novel, because it keeps the reader always entertained and is able to insert such depth even in a short sentence. There are also many different literary references and quotes, to both ancient and modern literature, that help explaining the themes and vary the book's structure.
The author also successfully explores and analyses many elements of ancient Greek and Roman culture, that become integrant part of the plot in its whole.

Addressed themes:
The author deals with many different themes, addressed both by the characters' actions or thoughts and by the events of the plot (although it is dutiful to affirm that the two intertwine a lot of times):
- One of the main themes is wealth and the effect of wealth privileges (especially on young people). The actions of all the main character, except Richard, are heavily influenced by the fact that they have enough money to be privileged and do whatever they want, even if what they want is evil and wrong. In fact, Richard is often the only one in the group questioning the morality of the actions made, because he is the only one that really had to learn how to live on his own and how to really follow societal rules. Most of the characters also carry on with their bad habits and they think to be right even when Richard makes them notice that they are hurting themselves (

Spoiler

see Francis' smoking addiction or Charles' alcohol addiction

).
In addition to that, the pretest for killing Bunny was merely economical, even though the real reason of the homicide was, at least for Henry, thinking of it as a way to affirm himself and his perceived power, in order to implicitly demonstrate, according to him, how he was a superior man because of his knowledge and his intelligence. But neither of these capabilities are really a good excuse for killing Bunny because, even if often annoying and impertinent, in the end he wasn't really an "evil man" and he did not deserve to die.

Spoiler

Moreover, Bunny was aware of the menace that hung on him even months before the fatal event took place, therefore he was in fact smart enough to predict his end, despite not being able to survive.

- In connection to the last theme, there is the theme of escapism: killing Bunny was in fact also an act of escapism for Henry, a way to escape from the monotony of his life (that he maybe even considered to be almost "complete", thanks to the deep knowledge he acquired during it, since when he was just a young kid) and to find a way out. In fact, just as Henry himself said, it was a way "to live without thinking", a way to free himself from the life he constrained himself in and an attempt to live what he considered "a normal life".

Spoiler

The aforementioned addictions or toxic behaviours of other characters are also an example of escapism.

- Beyond a search for escapism, repressed emotions are also among the motives of the murder. This is clearly explained through the concept of "beauty is terror". Julian says to his students that everyone has a need to accept and nourish his primal instincts and desires, or else they'll take over their rational selves. Because of that, according to his reasoning, almost every pragmatic and intelligent man hides the desire to break free and therefore secretly desires to lose control for a moment and to animate their true self, as destructive and slaughtering as it may be.
It is certainly a beautiful and poetic way to put it, but what he is trying to say is basically that repressed emotions may be the cause of secretly cultivating negative elements like rage or even pride (which can definitely be seen in the figure of Henry) and therefore, all of this would probably lead to terrible and destroying consequences, where all the hate is released on figures that are not at all guilty (

Spoiler

as it happened in the book

).
- As previously mentioned, Henry thought he was "worthy" of killing Bunny also because of his superior knowledge and intelligence. This may open up a huge discussion about whether having a great knowledge really corresponds to knowing how to act in a correct way (Plato's and Socrates' ethical intellectualism), but the characters' action themselves show that this binomy is in fact wrong. Knowledge does not equal to virtue, because most of the actions made by Henry were purely evil and caused by his innate instincts. Therefore, we may conclude that Henry might have been able to know what was the right thing to do, but in the end he still chose to not do the right thing.
- Another important binomy in which the characters believed but that in the end was proven to be totally wrong, is the Greek sentence καλός και αγατός, that believes in the correspondence between beauty and virtue. All the characters are indeed moved by their interest for the picturesque and for superficial looks and beauty: Richard himself chose to attend Hampden because the school looked beautiful and most of his thoughts during the book focus on how something or some action may have looked or seemed to be from the outside, but not as much on the reason they were achieved or on the nature of their morality.

Spoiler

Even Richard's love for Camilla is merely moved by her perceived beauty, nevertheless after he discovered that she was just playing with him and "leading him on" for most of the time.

All the characters always wear a secret mask and try to be well dressed and present themselves elegantly and neatly, just because they want to be perceived as good people, when in fact they are hiding their true selves.

Spoiler

Furthermore, when the characters return home after the first homicide, they are covered in blood during the night, when they are hidden from everyone's eyes, but as the morning comes they become again the perfect looking characters they interpreted before.

All of the actions are therefore moved by superficial motives, that in the end appear to have terrible consequences.
- Among other important themes (that were previously already mentioned and analysed), there are: the theme of redeeming, the theme of love, of the consequences of our actions and of their consequences on human relationships (see Richard's relationship with Camilla, Camilla's relationship with Henry, Henry's relationship with Julian), the theme of death and afterlife (

Spoiler

with which the author deals especially in the epilogue

) and the theme of the nature of evil.

Character analysis:

Henry:

As strange as it may seem, Henry represents the secret hero of the story.
A lot of different things could be said about his character, but it is important to notice a few things.
Firstly, all of his evil actions were secretly made for a motive that was not purely evil; ...

Spoiler

even if it does not seem to be so on the surface, the two homicides were merely an act of escapism, in which he expected to involve his friends in order to give everyone a better way of living, because he considered it the only way "to live without thinking" and to maybe reach fulfillment or even happiness, hit by the sad and yet so familiar desire to accomplish something, even to the point of trying to overcome life itself.
Secondly, all of his evil actions were in fact teached to him by Julian, that emphasized the importance they had for ancient Greeks during his lessons. Even if Henry did not have any right to consider those actions really necessary, no one taught him they were wrong and, in addition, Julian may even have known of the first homicide, but he did not try to stop him.
Finally, Henry redeemed himself. Someone could surely argue about the effective morality of his motives, but his redemption is certain. He was in a terrible situation, from which it may be hard to escape, when he killed himself, but this is not a proof that he did it just to save himself.
In fact, some hints that Henry already wanted to take his own life where present, starting from the fact that Henry already decided to gift Richard his car (as an ill man gifting his goods in the testament before his own death).
Moreover, another proof of Henry's final redemption is in the epilogue, when Richard sees him going down a "long gleaming hall", that might represent paradise or at least a positive afterlife.

Richard:

Richard represents the main victim of the events. He was indeed the one that was only partly aware of the dangers he was risking to get involved in and was among the one that suffered the most the psychological pressure of the others' actions, to which he did took part but not while being fully aware of the consequences of what they were going to do and still having some reasonable doubts.
When he firstly became part of the group he was, indeed, not aware of their behaviour and not even aware of the fact that he was simulating it and idealising them, looking at other "normal" people as if they were inferior because of their lower knowledge.
Even if Richard did in fact not have any motive at all for killing Bunny though, he still took part to the murder because he just felt part of the group and did not want to leave what he considered to be his friends, in an attempt to escape from the desperation and loneliness of a life that he lived almost all on its own, without any help or support from anyone else for most of the time.
Richard is therefore always psychologically contidioned by others' behaviour and this, together with his low self-esteem, causes him to never affirm himself and his opinion, always following others' orders but secretly knowing that the actions they are all making are in fact evil.

Francis:

Francis represents the conscious victim and is probably the most difficult character to analyze. The character is "conscious" because he was fully aware of everything for the whole time, but he did never take any enjoyment in the evil actions he took part to and suffered a lot for their consequences (

Spoiler

he was in fact desperate because of them, even to the point of trying to take his own life

). A similar behaviour might probably hint to a high degree of low self-esteem and guilt, frequently felt and shown by Francis, whose constant objective was trying to keep together the group and to hope for the best for all of them.

Spoiler

But he did not succeed in his plan and therefore took all the guilt on himself, because he still hoped for the better the whole time but in his heart knew that he could not save everyone and he failed because of his inability to distinguish the real world from his own idealised version of it (and also because, in fact, he was not able to even carry out many real efforts to do so).

Camilla:

Camilla represents the passive victim, always hurt because of love, but still trying to care and justify the wrong actions of her loved ones for most of the time.

Spoiler

The major example of this behaviour is her toxic relationship with her brother Charles: she secretly suffered his abusive behaviour for most of the time and really started to go away from him only when he started physically hurting her.
The situation is even more complicated for Henry: Camilla always loved him (even after he died) and always justified his bad actions and followed him, partly because he did not ever try to hurt her in any way and partly because he may in fact have also been really in love with her.
Furthermore, Camilla also represents the sadly frequent objectification of women: most of the characters are interested in her because of her appearance, starting from Richard himself (Henry is probably the only one that really loves her for her personality), and the most cruel or controversial parts of the plot are in fact often hidden for her, in an attempt to save her but in the end hiding the truth from her.

Charles:

Spoiler

Charles represents the secret villain of the story. Like the other characters, he does not really have an evil nature, but his actions may be the most evil because for most of the time they are hidden by a strong facade of gentleness and kindness, when in the end they are really hurting someone else and, even more, they are hurting himself and the people close to him. His alcoholism does play a big role in all of this, but we still have to remember that Charles showed a toxic and possessive behaviour as soon as Camilla went away from him. He went as far as hurting his own sister, as threatening and trying to kill Henry and in the end even shooting Richard (it might have not been on purpose, but still, rage took over him and he totally lost control). In the end, he was also the one whose evil actions were hidden by Henry, that in fact saved him from a life in jail with his sacrifice.

Julian:

Spoiler

Finally, Julian represents the real villain of the story. Even if he seem to be the only one not really guilty, he is in fact the man that inspired all of hi students' evil actions.
Apart from his possible role in the first homicide (we still do not know how much he knew or what he said to Henry, but for sure he did not even try to stop him), Julian is the one that possesses the most knowledge and knows how to use it to influence people around him. Therefore, his interest for the superficial, the picturesque and even for the bloodiness all get inherited by his students, that take him as a role model and start to fall into an abyss of madness because of that. Had the farmer not been murdered, Bunny would not have been killed. Had Julian stopped them before their first big mistake, he could have saved the life o many people, but in the end he did not.
In fact, once discovering the truth about the death of Bunny, the first thing that Julian does is go away, not because of fear or of delusion (as it may seem at a first glimpse), but because in the end he shows to care only for himself. He almost certainly understood that he could have stopped all of this, but he chose not to and showed to not care at all for his students. He attended Bunny's funeral only because he wanted to seem like a good man and, once he knew the truth and once Henry killed himself, he did not even attend his funeral or try to contact his pupils, forgetting them forever. Therefore, the comparison between him and Aristotle made by Richard in the epilogue is perfect for this reason: Julian Morrow knew the power of language, but he purposefully chose to use it for the evil.
Moreover, he purposefully chose students that were lonely and manipulable and excluded them from the rest of the campus making himself the most influential figure for them. Once he created his group of pupils, he then decided to play with them to "experiment" and when things got really wrong, he abandoned all of them, even Henry, who always saw him as his mentor.
Julian Morrow is therefore the pure incarnation of sly evilness and is the main cause of all the homicides and the evil events happened during the story.

An interesting observation:
During a scene in some of the first chapters, Richard talks about seeing the pages of Plato's "Parmenides" flipping on his bed because of the stream of air that is hitting the book.
This may firstly be a metaphor for the actions of the characters:

Spoiler

as much intellectual as they may seem, the consequences of their actions were destined to hit them and to enlighten their bad habits.
On a deeper observation though, it may even be a reference to Julian's attempt to "brainwash" and influence his pupils with his ideas. In fact, the theme of the Parmenides is Plato's attempt to overcome Parmenide's philosophy, exploring the wrongs of his theory and trying to affirm why the Theory of Ideas is right.
This may refer to the fact that Julian tried to break every link the students had with other people in Hampden, in order to isolate them and to make them think of him as the one that was right and ready to inspire them with his fascinating (yet corrupted) ideas.

Final judgement:
With "The Secret History", Donna Tarrt succeeds in creating a deep and interesting literary work.
The book does in fact heavily rely on other classical literary works (especially on Crime and Punishment for the plot and on Greek tragedies for the structure), but, also thanks to the exquisite style of the author, it adds a deep insight on the greyness and uncertainty of human actions and reflects on many different themes with an original take, reaching therefore in the end a perfect result, both from the point of the entertainment and from the point of the literary value of the whole (hi)story.

For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.

Content Warnings

caseyreads998's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

[need time to think over but Wow]

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